Mexican auto hotels might have an unsavory, pay-by-the-hour reputation, but some of them are downright luxurious, offering upscale amenities like in-room mini pools and open skylights. Often used by road trippers making their way around Mexico, auto hotels feature a single-vehicle garage connected to a room via a door.
Guests pay in advance for the block of time they wish to stay usually priced for four-, eight-, or twelve-hour options , pull their vehicle into the garage, and then enter their room through the connecting door. As they drove to the Hotel La Marina in Tampico, Allen steeled herself for what she assumed would be bare-bones accommodations; she just hoped their room would be clean. But when they pulled up to the hotel, "it was glorious," she says. But when Allen turned on the television, hoping to catch up on the news, she realized that something was different about Hotel La Marina.
The first channel she turned on: porn. The next channel: porn. Every single channel available was showing porn. Another strange amenity: the pack of condoms in the bathroom, nestled in a basket of products alongside the body lotion and shampoo. In a country in which many generations live together under one roof, auto hotels give amorous adults privacy not to mention props that range from stripper poles to sex chairs.
Often located on the outskirts of towns, auto hotels have long catered to a specific crowd, but the ones in Mexico are gaining best-kept-secret status among travelers willing to overlook their no-tell reputation in exchange for a clean, safe place to lay their heads and secure parking for their vehicles. But other people they met on the road kept describing auto hotels, says Mize, as "the most cost-effective, safest, and most convenient way to go.
(mh=qmHFQq4nwdITIdzV)3.jpg "Babes in Mazatlan")
The experience of staying in an auto hotel, however, is definitely different from most hotel visits. There is, however, a Kama Sutra chair. Room service menus can include Viagra, lube, or condoms listed alongside tacos and cervezas. Turns out, says Anders, her housekeeper goes there with her husband every Saturday night because they have three adult children and two grandchildren who live with them.
